27 January 2026, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2996: reverse down the street

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

“Yeah, but, y'all are sleeping on Dad – by the time y'all get married, remember that Dad will be the actual warrior childkeeper grandfather in the picture.”

Nine-year-old Milton Trent was talking with his eleven-year-old sister Velma and theoretical future brother-in-law Andrew Ludlow.

“Yeah, but, we do get to kinda take that for granted,” Velma said. “It's like you don't need to count him, because of course.”

“No, Velma,” Andrew said. “Remember that you can't take a dad for granted, even if he has always come home from every deployment – because when he is gone, he is gone.”

Milton and Velma instantly just grabbed Andrew in a supportive hug … they knew Andrew had lost his dad at just eight years old, and, because of drugs, never really had him. That's what made it so devastating.

“We can't even imagine,” Milton said to Velma later.

“He was right to set me straight on that – it's like what would we do if Dad hadn't loved us enough and wasn't blessed to keep on coming home?” she said. “I don't know sometimes how Andrew and his siblings handle it, because we have wonderful grandparents, but I still just couldn't.”

“Let's ask Grandma Jubilee,” Milton suggested, so they went to find their father's mother, Gladys Jubilee Trent, to ask.

“Well, this here is how God does these things: while you get where you have to go, He gives you strength on the way – so, Andrew and his siblings have been given the strength and support to deal with what they have to deal with, but because y'all's life story is different, you don't have to know how. It's like how your father and I deal with not having any of your uncles – my sons, your father's brothers around because they died on some drug foolery like your Andrew's parents did. All I can say is, if you go to God, He gives you the strength to go through it in ways that we just don't completely understand.”

“So, we don't get it because we can't get it?” Velma said.

“But how do y'all just live like that, not getting what you can't get and knowing God knows but won't explain it?” Milton said.

Grandma Jubilee considered this.

“As you get older, if you get wiser,” she said, you learn that knowing what you know and learning what you are meant to learn is really enough – it's deep enough waters.”

Velma and Milton considered this.

“I kinda get what you are saying,” Velma said, “because it's like you can paint the same tree at the same time every day and it's never going to look the same because there's clouds and wind and weather and birds and days getting longer and shorter.”

“Or, like Dad said to me and George this morning,” Milton said. “we can find out how many things we can learn while voluntarily go-grounding, or we can find more ways for him and Capt. Ludlow to ground us until we are ten years old, and we need to figure out what we are choosing, quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

“Yeah, y'all should really make the right choice,” Velma said, “and Andrew is right again, because sleeping on Dad can really mess you up. Remember that time when that so-called neighbor of ours rolled up into the driveway talking reckless and forgot how to drive the car when Dad came out with his army pistol drawn and his laser sight on?”

“I've never seen anybody back out of a driveway and reverse down the street like that,” Milton said. “But he really did hit a whole reverse because he went on to Alcoholics Anonymous, got sober, and came back and apologized, so, it ended up being cool.”

“So, maybe you and George will be all right if you find something good to read while co-grounding,” Grandma Jubilee said.

“Yeah, George said he was going to bring two books and so I'm bringing two books, and then we can also go work on the jigsaw puzzle at the Lees' house, so, it's cool,” Milton said.